Zooming in on a win …

Carp finally win at home

The second year of Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium started with an embarrassing handful of losses for Hiroshima, but Yoshiyuki Ishihara helped the Carp end the run of doom at the Zoom, belting a walk-off solo blast in the 10th inning for a 3-2 win over the Yakult Swallows on Tuesday.
“I don’t remember a think about [the homer],” Ishihara said. “I just went up there and wanted to take a good swing. That’s the only thing I thought about as I went to the plate.”
The Carp were 0-5 at the Zoom, and Ken Takahashi, who spent last season with the New York Mets, earned his first win here since Aug. 6, 2008. The Carp are still in the Central League cellar at 5-10.
New skipper, new ballpark, but the Carp seem to be just as bad as in the last decade. Four relievers blanked the Swallows over five innings, another positive for the Carp, with Takahashi picking up the win with 1.1 innings of work in Hiroshima’s first walk-off victory since June 18.

TIGERS 9, GIANTS 7
Teams that beat Yomiuri are going to have to do it the same way Hanshin did it at Tokyo Dome: outpunch the sluggers. The Tigers had five longballs, Kodai Sakurai breaking a tie with a three-run shot with one out in the eighth, and Matt Murton adding a solo blast with two outs as Hanshin came from six runs back to beat Yomiuri at the Big Egg.
Hanshin had three longballs for five runs in the sixth inning in its first five-homer game since Aug. 8, 2004, also against the Giants.

DRAGONS 8, BAYSTARS 7, 11 innings
Motonobu Tanishige’s clutch RBI double lifted Chunichi past Yokohama in a walk-off win at Nagoya Dome.

PACIFIC LEAGUE

MARINES 8, FIGHTERS 7, 10 innings
Pinch-hitter Kazuya Fukuura took Brian Wolfe (0-2) over the fence in right in the ninth inning for a two-run shot in the 10th inning that lifted Lotte past Nippon Ham at Sapporo Dome.
Tadahito Iguchi had three hits, including a two-run double, as the first-place Marines (13-5) dropped the Fighters to 5-12.

LIONS 5, EAGLES 3
Toru Hosokawa’s solo blast in the sixth inning got Seibu even, and Takumi Kuriyama’s two-run double in the eighth inning gave the Lions the win over Rakuten at Seibu Dome.

HAWKS 8, BUFFALOES 6
Jose Ortiz had three hits and drove in a pair as SoftBank took down Orix at Kyocera Dome Osaka.